Law & Disorder —

The ACTA Internet provisions: DMCA goes worldwide

New details about the Internet section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade …

That warm flood of outrage through the veins is addicting—but it also runs the danger of being addictive, and of being too easy. As the news broke this week about the "Internet provisions" in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), it didn't take long for the outrage to emerge.

For instance, the popular blog Boing Boing (we love you, Cory!) announced that, under the proposed ACTA provisions being drafted by the US, "ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability."

It also asserted that "ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability."

The EFF said that "contrary to current US law and practice, the US text apparently conditions the safe harbors on Internet intermediaries adopting a Graduated Response or Three Strikes policy ISPs would be required to automatically terminate a customer upon a rightsholders' repeat allegation of copyright infringement at a particular IP address."

The leak

The statements are strong, but the document they are based on is not. As the ACTA countries (Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, Korea, the US, etc.) meet in South Korea this week to hash out the provisions of the treaty dealing with the Internet, multiple reports began to circulate based on "sources" and a leaked document from the EU. Turns out, though, that all of these sources were actually the same one: the leaked EU document, which is now widely available for download (PDF).

The US ACTA delegation is drafting the Internet provisions that were debated this week, but they briefed the Europeans on the draft's progress when an EU delegation was in Washington back in September. The Europeans then wrote up an account of that discussion, which became the leaked document. So, what we're left with is a written account of an oral report on a draft document that was itself still being altered. In fact, we know it was still being altered at the time because lawyers for groups like CCIA and Public Knowledge were invited to see the draft, comment on it, and later see it again when some changes had been made.

The leaked EU document is short, only two pages of text, and most of the first page explains how the document came to be written. The document describes the US draft text as having five sections, and the problems begin with section two: "ACTA members have to provide for third-party liability." In other words, ISPs can be held liable for copyright violations committed using their networks, in at least some circumstances.

Section three says that "safe harbor" limits on this liability will be available, but to benefit from them, ISPs have certain obligations. "To benefit from safe harbors," says the document, "ISPs need to put in place policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content (ex: clauses in customers' contracts allowing, inter alia, a graduated response)."

Taken together, sections two and three sound terrifying, conjuring up the nightmare world described above, in which every ISP is required to adopt "three strikes" provisions and will be liable for copyright violations on its network. So, long, YouTube, Flickr, and every other user-generated content site on the Web!

This may be the eventual result of ACTA, but it's not what the EU document says. In fact, for US Internet users, the document sounds a whole lot like existing law—specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), rather than a big new power grab.That's not a coincidence; the EU document actually says that the section on "safe harbors" for ISPs is "based on Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), including a preamble about the balance between the interests of Internet service providers (ISPs) and rights-holders."

The DMCA has big problems—most notably, no anticircumvention of DRM even for fair use purposes—but Section 512 actually made sites like Flickr and YouTube possible by shielding them from most lawsuits.

But what about the mandated "three strikes" policies? Again, that's not what the document says. It says that ISPs must "put in place policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content" and that three strikes rules are one option among many (hence the "inter alia" quoted above). This might sound scary, but it's already in the DMCA and all US-based websites already adhere to its provisions.

As Section 512 makes clear, a safe harbor will only be granted to an ISP who has "adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers." Yet that provision has not created any sort of three strikes regime among the major US ISPs.

The leaked EU document also points out that the US "will not propose that authorities need to create such systems. Instead, they require some self-regulation by ISPs." That is, this won't create any new government mandate, but would leave in place the current system.

The DMCA goes globe-trotting

The ACTA Internet provisions can be better seen not as a call for secret new powers, but a "DMCA for the rest of the world." That's why section four of the US draft brings the "anti-circumvention" principles to the table, though even here the EU notes that "'fair use' will not be circumscribed" and "there will be exceptions to these prohibitions available to ACTA members."

And that's it; the document is remarkably brief, and appears to pose no novel issues to US residents worried that ACTA would come down hard on ISPs and end users. Given that these notes are based on a draft of a draft, however, one that was certainly modified during this week's ACTA meeting in Seoul, it's unclear how this section will evolve; we look forward to seeing a full draft of the relevant sections before passing judgment on it.

The real problem here is not for US residents, but for everyone else. ACTA is clearly an attempt to bring DMCA ideas like "notice and takedown" to other countries that don't currently use them. For instance, some other countries currently use and prefer a "notice and notice" scheme in which an ISP is not required to takedown allegedly infringing material after receiving a simple notice, but only to forward that notice on to the relevant subscriber.

Extending the anticircumvention language to the rest of the world will also be novel (in a bad way) for other countries, which could follow the US path of allowing DRM to trump copyright law and fair use rights. (Which is why it's pleasing to see that the US negotiators are open to fair use and to country-by-country exceptions to such rules.)

When it comes to the Internet provisions, the US clearly intended to show up in Seoul with an outline for "Taking the DMCA on a world tour!" How did this idea fare when presented to the other countries? Hard to say, since the official account of the negotiations is the sort of obfuscatory say-nothingness people hate to hear from bureaucrats.

"The discussions at the meeting were productive and focused on enforcement of rights in the digital environment and criminal enforcement," said the statement. "Participants also discussed the importance of transparency including the availability of opportunities for stakeholders and the public in general to provide meaningful input into the negotiating process. Participants in the meeting agreed that the next meeting would be hosted by Mexico in January 2010. Participants also reaffirmed their commitment to continue their work with the aim of concluding the agreement as soon as possible in 2010."

So ACTA's not coming in the next few months, and the negotiators have suddenly discovered the need for "meaningful input" from the public. Wonderful—but far too late after everything has been drafted, negotiated, and agreed-upon. Also, we've heard that song before.

ACTA is looking a good deal less scary than when it first appeared, but that's no reason for the public to back off its attempts to see what's being negotiated in its name.

39 Reader Comments

Until it is openly debated and available to they eyes and ears of the citizens of all the countries involved, it should be treated as a breach of the people's trust on the part of the governments and wholly unfit for adoption. Hopefully Congress-critters continue to receive letters/emails from constituents on the matter.

The ACTA Internet provisions can be better seen, not as a call for secret new powers, but a "DMCA for the rest of the world." That's why section four of the US draft brings the "anti-circumvention" principles to the table, though even here the EU notes that "'fair use' will not be circumscribed" and "there will be exceptions to these prohibitions available to ACTA members."

How is that possible? The technology can't tell what is fair use and what isn't. Unless they mean for it to have the same effect as the following part of the DMCA:

quote:

1201 (c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

Which is to say, meaningless text the apparent implication of which is undermined by the anti-circumvention provisions. You can say "this law doesn't affect fair use" all you like, but if you can't exercise fair use without "circumventing a technological protection measure" and it is illegal to "circumvent a technological protection measure" then you legally can't exercise fair use.

Making anti-circumvention illegal would be absolutely terrible. It's only by breaking some of those circumvention technologies (eg CSS, console region lockouts) that I, living in Australia, can actually play the media (Games, DVDs) which I have legitimately purchased from foreign countries. Otherwise I have to buy locally, at a significantly higher price, often for inferior quality content. And that's if I can get hold of the stuff at all.

It's like banning crowbars because they can be used to break into people's houses. Why can't we just make breaking & entering illegal? There's lots of legitimate uses for crowbars.

I've noticed that the list of nations don't include China. That is so dumb on so many levels that it isn't funny. And if the countries drafting ACTA think they can convince the Chinese government to join after they ratify it, I got some sand to sell you.

For every disconnected non-US user, will the US government take over his or her subscription and keep paying the ban-happy ISP?

Oh and LOL at this passing. LOL at the US telling Asia (all of it, Eurasia, Australasia etc)/South and Middle America/Africa/Europe minus France "all your internet users must be disconnected or else!" hahaha they really do think they're like the center of the universe or something.

Roll over and die, people who refuse to adapt to the free market they so much crave and instead want the free market to adapt to them by the passage of ridic laws.

Making anti-circumvention illegal would be absolutely terrible. It's only by breaking some of those circumvention technologies (eg CSS, console region lockouts) that I, living in Australia, can actually play the media (Games, DVDs) which I have legitimately purchased from foreign countries. Otherwise I have to buy locally, at a significantly higher price, often for inferior quality content. And that's if I can get hold of the stuff at all.

It's like banning crowbars because they can be used to break into people's houses. Why can't we just make breaking & entering illegal? There's lots of legitimate uses for crowbars.

Welcome to America circa 1998.

Oh, and for those Americans who think this won't do them any harm, think again. The DMCA goes further than existing WIPO treaties require, which means that right now Congress can easily eliminate the most onerous parts. If those excessive restrictions become part of a new international agreement, fixing the DMCA becomes a lot harder.

Yeay. Shit law gets global. EU already has protections for ISPs and youtubes (well not in Italy apparently but that's a fucked up country anyhow).

The whole ACTA thing needs to go down. It seems that whole world is turning in to a police state to keep up a failing tiny business (lets face it, media industry is tiny in comparison with many others and they still rule us like kings or something).

Three strikes policies are ridiculous. Blacklisting people from the internet is like blacklisting them from electricity, telephones, or the postal service.

The constant expansion of copyright often seems contrary to the original purposes of the law. Read what Mark Twain said about it, and think about industry now: http://www.bpmlegal.com/cotwain.html

I also think the embrace of DRM is an attempt by old industry to crush their competition: everyone else. It is definitely their right to obsess about their own content, but when they start trying to abolish technologies that might be used by competitors, I worry.

The ACTA Internet provisions can be better seen, not as a call for secret new powers, but a "DMCA for the rest of the world." That's why section four of the US draft brings the "anti-circumvention" principles to the table, though even here the EU notes that "'fair use' will not be circumscribed" and "there will be exceptions to these prohibitions available to ACTA members."

How is that possible? The technology can't tell what is fair use and what isn't. Unless they mean for it to have the same effect as the following part of the DMCA:

The only way that this can done is by monitoring and restricting what you can and can't do on the internet.

Governments are scared of the internet because it allows information and people to exist freely outside of their controls. This is intolerable because one of the basic tenets of government power is information control.

When your producing a television show or a radio show there are large books full of what you are allowed and are not allowed to talk about. This is in the USA, BTW. Everybody is hugely restricted and controlled.

However the internet there is no such regulation in place. There is no way to monitor and there is no way to restrict or control information.

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The goal here is not really to establish any specific rules or establish any specific way that ISPs must monitor and document it's customers. There are probably going to be a shitload of new rules and such... but that is just government being normal.

The goal here, though, is to make ISPs and major companies like Google much more easier targets for manipulation.

You see how our government has worked in the past 50-60 years or so is to establish lots of rules for every little crisis that comes a long. However those rules are not actually enforced or enacted on in many cases because the results of enforcing the laws are politically undesirable. This is the self-regulating nature of our government. They makes lots and lots of laws. Hundreds of thousands. Millions of laws. Nobody could tell you how many laws exist now and what they all are for and how they are enforced... each time you have laywers trying to go over our government laws you always get back different answers.. everything so badly written that everything can be interpreted in a hundred different ways. This gives the government huge latitude for operating.

So governmental laws are selectively enforced based on political winds. If you have economic good times then corporations are allowed more freedom then if there are bad times and the government is under more pressure, for example. Well it'll be the same for major ISPs and internet websites. These treaties establish rules of control that can be selectively applied depending on political windfalls.

As noted by the article if these treaties are truly enforced they will destroy Youtube and such things. These laws have the potential to completely destroy Google and other companies.

So if this stuff gets passed this gives the government a huge stick to which threaten large website owners and ISPs. If they disobey then the government can crack down on user's copyright violations and push those companies into a economic tailspin. If they obey then the government can selectively enforce the laws against their competitors and push them out of business.

If you ever wondered why Fox News Channel kissed so much republican ass then now you know why. You see the Fox News Channel is owned by News Corporation. News Corporation is a Australian company and thus is a foreign owned media corporation. The FCC and friends have laws regarding media consolidation and those laws are much more harsh on non-USA media corporations then native ones.

What that means is that the FCC has the ability to control how much media a single company can control and operate in any particular area in the USA. So if Fox pissed off the people in charge at the time then GWB and friends could come down and have the FCC enforce the rules that say that Fox was very limited. All of it is based on 'The public good', which is a defined by whatever the people in charge want it to be. If the FCC laws were heavily enforced on Fox this would have the effect of massively hurting Fox's business and limiting potential growth and thus limit investments. This would put Fox in a huge competitive disadvantage when competing with CNN/MSNBC/etc. So in exchange for Fox promoting the republican agenda then they were able to get help circumventing FCC investigations. The republicans even tried a few times to lift media ownership rules to allow News Corp to own higher percentages of radio stations, newspapers, and such.

So these treaties are designed to do similar things for people like Google.

This way the government can regulate without having to pass laws. Just threaten to enforce the laws that already exist and that corporation has no choice but to do what you tell them to do.

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Oh.. and you may ask "Why are they doing this by international treaty and not just pass laws in congress?"

Because:

A) Internet is international so if you want to establish a way to punish corporations that operate on the internet it has to be international to have the highest effectiveness.

B) Treaties tend to go under much less scrutiny then people trying to pass real bills. And treaties, once ratified, are automatically Federal law and override existing Federal laws.

So with the original DMCA they established that ISPs and websites like Youtube are not liable for copyright violations that users post on them. If copyright owners send a DMCA notice to Google (or whoever) then all Google has to do is automatically remove the offending material and they are not liable. So if the USA wants to be able to automatically punish people like Google then they would need to override the previous law... and a treaty is a very easy way to do it.

AND BTW....

In case people don't understand this yet the USA DMCA laws probably already apply to their countries if they are not in the USA. At least in some substantial way; the way the laws operate are probably not identical.

The DMCA act is actually something established to enforce the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996.

The 'World Intellectual Property Organization' is a United Nations organization consisting of 184 different nations and implements about 24 different international treaties.

You're normally spot on Nate but this time you missed it. ACTA is dirty because it's being done in secret and politicians everywhere are telling people it has nothing to do with the Internet. I think you're putting too much credence into a single document and trying to extrapolate everything from that alone. And that's where you tripped up.

@drag: What you are saying is true. A prime example is 9/11. I mean, how else would people know that 3 world trade centres went down on 9/11? Pretty much 98% of the public think that only 2 towers went down when in fact a third went down due to a fire somewhere around the ~fourth floor somehow hot enough to weaken 2-3 inch freaking metal girders. Thanks to the internet, we are able to gain multiple perspectives of the one event.

Though pretty much, if the governments does push this ACTA through, I see a huge amounts of civil disobedience from the public and ISP's. People are already annoyed with nanny laws in Australia to a point that many have lost respect for the police due to profiteering (police in Australia have to reach a "booking" quota to evaluate performance). This ACTA is solely targeted to those who pirate. Now in my experience, people who pirate (generally kids/ university students ->me/ minimal wage income earners/ etc) do not have the means to purchase a legitimate copy. The ACTA criminalises these people. Now these people do not necessarily have the means to pay for lawyers in court and the fine/ court fees would make life even harder for these people. That could force people further into debt and emotional hardship till they snap and heads roll. This is not a future that I look forward too. So the disparity between the poor and the rich will increase even further than it is today.

Seriously, what's with the gov'ts vs world lately? The honest people that make a small mistake get shafted into oblivion while criminals that know the system find ways out of trouble. Hmm... 2012 = "Rebellion Year"?

One thing I don't understand... they are suggesting non-commericial copyright infringement is a criminal offence? Since when? Its a civil infringement if I was not mistaken?

Originally posted by togenshi:One thing I don't understand... they are suggesting non-commericial copyright infringement is a criminal offence? Since when? Its a civil infringement if I was not mistaken?

"Non-Commercial" is a dead phrase to many anti-pirates; they're redefining everything from torrents to rapidshare as "commercial" - after all, you get free stuff (and are probably funding drugs and terrorism!)

togenshi as drag mentioned it's all about control. The government is scared of media industry and thus is listening to every whim they have plus the wants of both coincide to more control.

Free information is dangerous for their power base and thus they are trying to limit it in any way they can. So no it's not stupidity or anything like that. It's a blatant power grab and most people are unaware of it or don't even care that they are giving away rights that others fought and died for.

Originally posted by togenshi:One thing I don't understand... they are suggesting non-commericial copyright infringement is a criminal offence? Since when? Its a civil infringement if I was not mistaken?

In the USA, some non-commercial copyright infringement is criminal. For example, if the value of the materials copyrighted exceeds $250,000 (IIRC) the infringement is a crime, whether or not the person infringing was doing so for personal or commercial reasons. These changes were made in the early 1980s.

Originally posted by Fairly:You're normally spot on Nate but this time you missed it. ACTA is dirty because it's being done in secret and politicians everywhere are telling people it has nothing to do with the Internet. I think you're putting too much credence into a single document and trying to extrapolate everything from that alone. And that's where you tripped up.

I'm not really saying anything about ACTA except for the fact that the leaked document doesn't say all the things being said about it. That's really about all we know at this point when it comes to the internet provisions. And extending the DMCA worldwide would have all sorts of negative consequences, as I mention at the end.

Originally posted by AxMi-24:The government is scared of media industry...

The governments are not scared at all. The only thing governments really fear is the "governed". (That whole bread and circuses thing) What you are seeing is the end result of hard core lobbying or to put it another way, bribery.....

Why else would the government give one flying fig about the entertainment industry ? Its not because all politicians are lovers of the arts.

You can say "this law doesn't affect fair use" all you like, but if you can't exercise fair use without "circumventing a technological protection measure" and it is illegal to "circumvent a technological protection measure" then you legally can't exercise fair use.

This is exactly the reason I personally choose to disobey the DMCA. It's an immoral law that makes criminals out of people who are not otherwise engaging in criminal activity and prevents the exercise of fair use rights.

Originally posted by Golgatha:This is exactly the reason I personally choose to disobey the DMCA. It's an immoral law that makes criminals out of people who are not otherwise engaging in criminal activity and prevents the exercise of fair use rights.

Yeah baby! If you're gonna arrest me due to DMCA violations you better send 10 people, because I'm taking out the first three for sure. It's rebellion time! W00t!

Originally posted by Golgatha:This is exactly the reason I personally choose to disobey the DMCA. It's an immoral law that makes criminals out of people who are not otherwise engaging in criminal activity and prevents the exercise of fair use rights.

Yeah baby! If you're gonna arrest me due to DMCA violations you better send 10 people, because I'm taking out the first three for sure. It's rebellion time! W00t!

I'm not a fan of the DMCA and believe that it needs to be re-written or abolished, but really? You're willing to kill (and maybe be killed) over copying some movies and music? Wow -- and I thought I was a big fan of entertainment.

I'm not a fan of the DMCA and believe that it needs to be re-written or abolished but really? You're willing to kill over copying some movies and music? Wow -- and I thought I was a big fan of entertainment.

Don't be obtuse. It's the unconscionable threat of federal prison "over copying some movies and music" which induces the exceptional responses. The government presents you with two choices: First, whether to obey an unconscionable law, and second, if you don't, whether to resist or go quietly to prison. The ideal option is to have Congress fix the law, but that mechanism is corrupted by Hollywood bribe money. Yet there is no acceptable alternative. What do you expect when you back the public into a corner like this? Some people are going to take it too far.

It's all about the money and it boils down to an attack on the middle class by big business. The rich are getting richer and the middle class is getting fucked. We will ship your well paying manufacturing jobs to Asia, we will tell you what you can do with your purchases and we will tell you where you can go to die after you enlist in the only decent paying job left. At least in America they haven't taken all the guns yet like here in Canada. When is the revolution/shooting going to start? It's only a matter of time.....

I'm not a fan of the DMCA and believe that it needs to be re-written or abolished but really? You're willing to kill over copying some movies and music? Wow -- and I thought I was a big fan of entertainment.

Don't be obtuse. It's the unconscionable threat of federal prison "over copying some movies and music" which induces the exceptional responses. The government presents you with two choices: First, whether to obey an unconscionable law, and second, if you don't, whether to resist or go quietly to prison. The ideal option is to have Congress fix the law, but that mechanism is corrupted by Hollywood bribe money. Yet there is no acceptable alternative. What do you expect when you back the public into a corner like this? Some people are going to take it too far.

I'm not being obtuse, I'm trying to be relative.

If they are worried about maybe going to federal prison over copying movies and music, I can guarantee you that shooting people will get you there. Has there been a case where someone not involved with commercial pirates going to federal prison for exercising fair rights on their media (ie: making MP3s of their bought an payed for CDs)? And I'm pretty sure that you would need to go to court first before you were hauled off to federal prison -- where I'm also pretty sure the judge would take your prior record into account before passing judgment.

Again, I'm not against fixing the DMCA but I am against, as you say, "Some people [taking] it too far.". There are other ways to oppose an unconscionable law for fsuk sake.

I secretly hope for continued incompetent minority Canadian governments that are far too concerned with attacking the other parties precisely so crap like this doesn't get added to Canadian law. Lobbyists have been pushing for a DMCA North for quite some time and I have little hope beyond ineffective government that they won't just cave to the demands of industry.

Originally posted by Bob Loblaw:I secretly hope for continued incompetent minority Canadian governments that are far too concerned with attacking the other parties precisely so crap like this doesn't get added to Canadian law. Lobbyists have been pushing for a DMCA North for quite some time and I have little hope beyond ineffective government that they won't just cave to the demands of industry.

Except that this presumed-handicapped minority gov has just passed a bill to cripple the national firearm registry with the help of liberal and NDP MPs . Crap like ACTA can still be enacted under a minority rule.

Go ahead US, keep pushing. You are obviously being loved more and more abroad.

Originally posted by togenshi:One thing I don't understand... they are suggesting non-commericial copyright infringement is a criminal offence? Since when? Its a civil infringement if I was not mistaken?

"Non-Commercial" is a dead phrase to many anti-pirates; they're redefining everything from torrents to rapidshare as "commercial" - after all, you get free stuff (and are probably funding drugs and terrorism!)

Just don't buy their stuff, no matter what!

Terrorism inevitably will pop up in every filesharing discussion for some reason, drawing parallels to Godwin's law.

If they are worried about maybe going to federal prison over copying movies and music, I can guarantee you that shooting people will get you there.

Yes, yes, I'm not advocating shooting anyone. All I'm saying is that if someone knows they're going to prison for something as absurd as publishing the solution to a math problem, the outrage drawn from that absurdity is capable of producing a violent response. I'm not saying it's what should happen, I'm saying it's what can happen.

The only acceptable solution to this is to fix the DMCA. And as long as that avenue is blocked by corporate campaign dollars, we are living with a dangerous situation. No one has any respect for this law and the penalties (up to five years for a first offense) are significant enough for that outrage to turn ugly. There are people who would rather go to jail for 25 years for doing something wrong than go to jail for 5 years for doing something right.

I guess I'm agreeing with you. People shouldn't take it too far. My point is merely that it is far from harmless to permit a law that is the subject of such public contempt to remain on the books. It inspires people to take extreme measures that should not be necessary in a democracy. It undermines the rule of law.

So here we are exporting our dangerous, absurd, intolerable laws to the rest of the world.

In fact, for US Internet users, the document sounds a whole lot like existing law—specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), rather than a big new power grab .... the document appears to pose no novel issues to US residents worried that ACTA would come down hard on ISPs and end users ... The real problem here is not for US residents, but for everyone else.

While this is certainly a bigger problem for other countries than for the US, it is still a problem here. It is much harder to back out of a treaty than it is to change a law locally. Even if we are the ones pushing for the treaty to begin with, and other countries could easily be persuaded to change the terms, treaties require the active participation of the Executive branch, and are thus much harder for activist groups to create momentum for than bills that originate in Legislative branch.

Even if this bill were word for word identical to the DMCA, resulting in no effective change on the current state of the law, ratifying it as a treaty would pretty much cement the law, removing any hope that problems with it would eventually be fixed.

Originally posted by Daneel:I thought addicting was what Americans used instead of addictive, but it seems there's a difference in meaning for you guys. Can anyone tell me what that difference is?

They are both perfectly correct and can be used interchangeably. It appears to me that people use addicting more often to describe activities, while addictive is used to describe substances, but it's not a rule by any stretch.

On the bright side, perhaps the next Bond movie will involve James, a hot model, and an international terrorist whose goal is to distribute copyrighted images scanned from microfiche of the model throughout the world via torrents. The main action will take place on computer monitors, which display the copyrighted images scanned from microfiche of the model in all sorts of intriguing poses. Whether or not Bond succeeds, we win.

If they are worried about maybe going to federal prison over copying movies and music, I can guarantee you that shooting people will get you there.

Yes, yes, I'm not advocating shooting anyone. All I'm saying is that if someone knows they're going to prison for something as absurd as publishing the solution to a math problem, the outrage drawn from that absurdity is capable of producing a violent response. I'm not saying it's what should happen, I'm saying it's what can happen.

The only acceptable solution to this is to fix the DMCA. And as long as that avenue is blocked by corporate campaign dollars, we are living with a dangerous situation. No one has any respect for this law and the penalties (up to five years for a first offense) are significant enough for that outrage to turn ugly. There are people who would rather go to jail for 25 years for doing something wrong than go to jail for 5 years for doing something right.

I guess I'm agreeing with you. People shouldn't take it too far. My point is merely that it is far from harmless to permit a law that is the subject of such public contempt to remain on the books. It inspires people to take extreme measures that should not be necessary in a democracy. It undermines the rule of law.

So here we are exporting our dangerous, absurd, intolerable laws to the rest of the world.

Yes, I believe we are agreeing, we just came at it from a slightly different angle.

quote:

No one has any respect for this law and the penalties (up to five years for a first offense) are significant enough for that outrage to turn ugly.

This whole ordeal makes our collective governments seem like wussies. They let mega-corps & their lawyers sit behind closed doors hammering out some crap without any input from governments (which represent consumers). And they expect to just toss out this stuff from behind their closed doors when they're done and for the collective governments to lap it up like pigs at a trough.

And the sad thing is, our governments probably WILL lap it up, since it saves them time and trouble ironing something out on their own. No, let the "industry experts" do all the hard work, then just sign the consumer freedom away on the dotted line. Puppet government, indeed.

I really wish the courts would've struck down the DMCA and anything even remotely analogous to it. ISPs, service providers, etc. should not be secondarily liable for the actions of someone else. Infringers/Pirates are using a service, nothing more. What that person does with the service is their problem, not the ISP's. If I rent a hotel room and fill it with prostitutes, the hotel doesn't get charged with facilitating prostitution.